Stubborn Maiden, Gentle Monk
by TheAlderHollow
Summary: A series of Taang one-shots that I'm starting. Post-war, and plenty of somewhat scandalous fluff.
1. Fun and Easy

"The glory of the wind is not that it does not ever love/ But it loves easily/ And lets go," Aang spoke in verse.

Toph had him in a vise grip with one arm on his waist, another over on his pillow, while they listened to the soft quiet of the snowfall and to the book of poetry he always brought with him on his visits to her metalbending academy. They were both 17 now, and his voice had become deeper and smoother in his older age.

She was down to her plan shift and had undone her bun, and he in loose pajama pants. When he paused to take a breath, she heard the fire in the stove hum a little a louder, and then ease as he exhaled.

These visits had been happening for two years now, ever since he and Katara had broken up. Aang said it was amicable but his heartbeat told Toph that there was a lie somewhere in that, but Toph didn't challenge him on it. Nor had they ever come up with a word for what they were doing right now except, maybe, "wonderful."

"Was that Laghima?" She asked, sincere.

"That was Avatar Aang, actually."

She punched his arm for that. Toph knew what he was telling her, and she loved it. Aang had always told that she could be free and do what she wanted, and he would never try to stop her. What floored her every time was that he loved her like this and still meant it. He was going back to his people eventually, and after that all his hanky-panky would be at the fertility festivals

During the 100 Year War, people of spiritual inclination were drawn to the empty Air Temples seeking the enlightenment described in the poetry and tales of the airbending gurus. Some were just hermits, some had diseases of the mind or soul and wanted a cure, and some were refugees.

And then something strange happened. Airbenders began to appear, among the squatters and those living far away. In the 100 years before Aang's return, Air Nomads away from the temples had melted away and found sanctuary with sympathetic people in the Earth Nation and Water Tribes. Their descendants hid their airbending abilities during all this time, awaiting their Avatar.

None of that mattered right now. It would be years before the Temples were rebuilt, all the old books reclaimed and traditions ready to practiced again. For now, the only thing he had to do was read and recite, and her listen.

Aang especially liked the poems that combined the spiritual with the sensual, where the man begged to be allowed to enter the temple and worship.

_On his first visit, his version of knocking had been to rattle the window with great soft gusts, rhythmically, like a song._

_She had swung them out to the cool spring night air and yelled, "Twinkle Toes! I will bend you into a hole so deep in the ground you will come out on the other side of the goddamn planet!"_

_And dropped off from his air sprout and crouched on the windowsill his face with an inch of hers. She breathed in that clean, familiar smell of fallen leaves and sandalwood.  
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"_I found this story book in the Western Temple. It has some beautiful prayers…And Avatar Yangchen's tales "_

"_You going to pray to me Twinkle Toes? I'm not like that statue of the beautiful goddess around Yu Dao."_

"_Aren't you?" His tone was soft and thick._

_Toph knew what he was doing. So she grabbed him by his robe, brought him through the window and then bended the earthen floor up so it carried and dropped him on the bed. She plopped down next to him._

"_So, read," she demanded while she intertwined her hands behind her head. Toph could feel his heartbeat accelerate, and smirked in victory as he flipped through the pages and stumbled on the first words._

And that was the thing about Aang that made him different from every person she'd known before, at age 16. At that age she was still dirty and a little smelly and her hair was always up in a large bun and now she was a little gangly with pimples here and there on top of that, but when they were alone and intimate he spoke with reverence.

"And how exactly, are you gonna make me feel special, Twinkle Toes?" Her tone had just the amount of sarcasm she was aiming for, breaking off the kiss during a pause in the poetry. The kisses were still dry and short, more like pecks than anything else.

He moved from on top of her down to the foot of the bed, "In the Fire Nation, washing someone's feet is considered the ultimate act of submission."

She snorted in derision. "Oh yeah, you got soap an-" Her sentence ended in a gasp of surprise when she felt hot water and two thumbs start to massage the soles.

A warm feeling start to roar in her chest like it was fire and she felt the need to grab him and punch him on the arm for it but instead dug her fingers into her mattress and a great crack opened underneath them in the earthen floor.

When he laid a deep kiss on her foot, she_ felt_ his smile against the sole at the happy sound that came from her throat.

After that particularly exciting foot massage where she made noises that she was sure her all her metalbending students heard, she straddled his lap and grabbed his face, running her fingers through the locks of his hair. He'd been growing it out, at her encouragement. She rather liked its stiffness and greasiness, like swamp reeds.

"What if I don't like the idea of you giving all those airbender girls getting foot massages that belong to me?" she teased, sounding more wanting than she'd ever thought she be.

"You could always come disguised as an Air Maiden," he offered, and seemed to mean it in some way.

"So every year, all the Air Nomads just meet and have an orgy?" she persisted.

Aang let out a huff of laughter and explained, "It's not just sex. They play music, sing songs, tell stories, dance, read poetry." Two hands were creeping up her thigh under her plain shift, and her own hands were moving down his head to his cheek. She heard him gulp, "And then you pair off. You choose who you leave with. The idea is to woo them, with romance. The monks used to say '_life to be meaningful doesn't need anymore than a moment/ The deepest love __to be real __needs only a night.'_"

She could feel his heart thumping nearly out his chest and into her hand. He'd grown, like they all had. Somewhat broader shouldered, more gracefully shaped and filled out.

"You owe me, after I that glider ride you took me on."

"You had fun, and you liked the roller coaster in Omashu even more," Aang defended.

Well, she had screamed and cried, and he had screamed and laughed, but at the bottom they had both breathed out frantically, "One more!" Riding the koi fish had been a different story, but Aang was fun and easy, and she needed fun and easy.

When she wiggled herself over his lap, Toph felt him squirm a little bit, and she smirked a little. When his right hand let go of her thigh she snatched it and put it back. Unnerving that monk was the 'easy' part, seeing him break and do some very unmonkish things was the 'fun'.

"Keep reading," she told him, and he grabbed the book again, fumbling for a page.


	2. Try Not to Cause a Scandal

_So these may all be one-shots, but this is actually a sequel to the first one "Fun and Easy", and there will be another about Zuko and Katara's wedding celebrations. The writing in italics are Toph's flashbacks to an earlier meeting with Katara and Suki. _

_This is all post-war: Aang and Toph are around 17; Zuko and Katara are 19._

_I hope you're all enjoying them! Please review and give feedback. I would like to know where I could do better, especially on things like characterization, pacing, any cliches that you see etc...  
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><p><strong><em>Try Not to Cause a Scandal<em>**

When her feet tapped lightly on the ground, she felt it's wide dimensions: 12x12 meters, with a bed with twice her height in both length and size. The mattress was so soft it was practically a black hole in her senses.

Paintings and large tapestries hung on the walls, and Toph wondered if Zuko or Katara had the servants put in the extra effort to make them Earth Nation.

The walls were made of smooth dried clay, supported by a skeleton of iron bars set deep inside. When Toph spread her legs into horse stance and reached her arms out to claw at and ripple the wall in front of her, it felt like the kind of toy clay her tutors used to give her when she was a little girl; soft and pliant. This was a satisfying feeling.

A warm night breeze came in from the open window. It was low and soft at first, and then it went higher and sharper, then dropped low in a pattern like a human hum.

Two sandals scraped lightly on the inner sill, and with them drifted in that smell of fallen leaves and sandalwood.

"I'll never be finished with this poem  
>My words can't carve finely<br>Enough to tell you of that face  
>I don't have a chisel that can bring out<br>About every strain of her hair  
>There's no stone smooth like that silk<br>I tried to put it under the full moon  
>So you could see her glow."<p>

Toph crossed arms and took two steps toward him, "Not bad."

"I'll never be finished with this poem  
>But that is lovelier than I can say<br>For I will be seeing the face of loveliness forever," he finished.

She smiled more than she would have like before stomping on the floor and with a pillar launched him onto the bed. In truth, she thought the poem was a little clunky and plain, but his voice was soothing and mellow.

Toph jumped after him and immediately she had one under his upper back, another over his waist and her head on his chest. His left arm rested lightly against her back.

"I'm bored. Entertain me," she demanded.

She half expected a poem or a story. Instead, she heard him ruffle through the satchel at his side.

"Do you want to know about colors?" Aang asked eagerly.

She furrowed her brow in skepticism, but this feeling was too sweet for her to actually feel disappointed. "Better not be making fun of me Twinkle Toes."

Aang was holding something in his palm out in front of them. The arm over her head at her back pinched one her hands and guided her to the object. It was wide, thin, and he moved her fingers over its rubbery surface.

"It's a leaf," she spoke in discovery.

"That's what pure green is like. It's got this sickening sort of feel, like the feel of fresh leaf."

Toph was more focused on his fingers and his palms. They were warm and smooth like marble laid out in the sun, but somehow still soft. She continued to stroke her fingers on those after he had put the leaf away.

"What about blue? I want a color that feels pretty."

"Is dark blue good, T?" It's a little dark."

"I don't know what dark is Twinkle Toes, just bring it out."

He hummed a "yes" and then Toph heard more rustling in the bag.

Aang had made it cold to the touch, but not frosty or icey. Slightly rough so that she could feel the dust build up on her fingers as she rubbed it but not jagged. The surface had something like cliffs, as if shards had been chipped off. Toph's bending though, told her what it was.

"Rock."

"Slate," he added. "Cold slate is what dark blue kind feels like."

"Prettier," her voice sounded almost whiny, happy and demanding at the same time.

Aang put the rock away and picked up something else, larger, enough to fill her hand.

Toph waited.

"Show me! Do what you did before."

Aang laughed from deep in his chest and then started to guide her fingers over it with his splayed out hand. A smile started from the corners of her lips and grew till she was nearly giggling.

It was glass, she knew right away, but he warmed it with his bending. "That's pink. I think," he said, hesitating slightly.

"Ooh, are you a poet?" she cooed with a mocking tone and they both chuckled.

"Do you have yellow?"

A moment passed as he searched the satchel. "You have to smell this one. It's a flower."

The fragrance was thick and sweet, but pointed. "Jasmine," she said, remembering what Uncle Iroh had taught her about teas.

Aang told her about purple with soft strip of velvet, and red with a cylinder of hot steel.

"How long did it take you to find all these?"

"All day," Aang answered.

"What about the wedding?", even Toph wasn't sure what she was asking him, but he hadn't mentioned it.

"I'm not in it," was the answer, but it was too studied to be playful like he was trying to be.

"I hate it when you pretend I'm not asking you what I'm actually asking you." She hit his ribs with the heel of her hand.

"I haven't really thought about it," Aang was playing with her hair, running them like a comb down the length.

His heartbeat stayed at its quick pace. He wasn't lying, but she was still curious. Somehow Toph knew he was hiding something by omission rather than lie. The word "really" tipped her off.

"What have you thought about?"

"This."

"What is 'this'?" She was trying to pin that little airbender down, but if Aang had gotten more direct over the years, he'd also gotten more clever.

"Awesome," he croaked out and his voice cracked a little bit.

_"Do you ever see Aang? Very much." Suki had asked, as Toph lay back across the bench of her carriage to place her head in the square of warm sunshine coming through the window._

_Neither of the other two girls seemed to care about this casual use of a royal fire nation carriage._

_"The Republic police force likes my idea of metalbenders as cops. Metal shackles that pin the perp to the ground work, pretty good it turns out, but there's some kinks to work out." Like how sometimes bones were inadvertently broken._

_"Does he visit the metalbending school?" Katara asked._

_Toph felt her face twitch at the pointedness of her friend's tone, which brought back all those memories. Where they onto it? How? Aang was practically un-trackable on his glider, or even on Appa. She wanted to smack herself for nearly maybe giving the show away._

_"Yeah. My students are doing well. A few are already full officers."_

_"Toph?" Suki persisted._

_"What?" _

_"Your face is a beet right now."_

_Toph's bangs had failed her, but she saw an opening and took it._

_"Haven't seen one of those in a long time, Sugar Queen."_

_"Toph.," she warned._

_It was too late; Toph had gotten herself back in control and felt her face cool down._

"Hey, Aang."

"Yeah," he seemed surprised that she used his real name.

"They know."

After a pause, he said, "The rehearsal dinner, and the wedding. You should come with me."

"_With_ you."

_Oma, they were right._

"No other person I'd want to go with."

"I hate those sorts of things, Twinkle Toes."

Immediately he floated upward to be laying on top her, and kissed her in the crook of the neck.

"What about now?"

She shook her head lightly, "The dresses feel awful."

He kept moving farther down, "It'll feel all that much better when I take it off you."

There was the dirty-minded monk she'd been trying to force out into the open.

One of his hands was moving up her leg and to her abdomen, and Toph was finding it hard to lie still but she had to hold out a little longer.

"How about…" Aang moved away and before she could grab him by his robe and demand he finished what he started, two thumbs were stroking the arch of her foot and she half jumped up off the mattress.

Toph took some belabored breaths before she thought of an answer.

_Suki had managed to talk Katara into diverting them to a swanky bar with a string band playing soft music in the background. They were seated at a far table in the corner, with cushioned benches. _

_Katara ordered them a bottle of sake and white wine. The manager came out and declared that the soon-to-be Royal Lady and her companions would enjoy the finest stock of both, free of charge. Katara politely insisted that they pay twice before conceding. _

_"I thought you would be a fire whiskey gal," Suki mused aloud, after they were third of the way though the sake and the white wine._

_"Why?" Toph retorted in a slurring angry voice, "cause I'm tomboy who's dirty and talks tough?"_

_"Yeah," Suki admitted with a laugh._

_Toph huffed, picked up her glass of sake to take a sip and said playfully, "Aang says I'm a goddess!"_

_Toph slapped her hand on her mouth. The table was quiet. She had called him by his name. Not Twinkle Toes. Not Airhead, on top of it all._

_"Toph," Katara began, "Is he...like…sexy?"_

_She could feel their stares. She thought for a moment._

_No, sexy wasn't exactly the word. Aang was…. sweet. Gentle, warm, like a tropical breeze.. He was a breath of fresh air. Toph had lived her life talking in 90% sarcasm and he took it with a smile, answer straight every time, and could be funny at the same time. He also liked to spar, and used his firebending to turn himself into a warm blanket. _

_That was the word she picked. "Aa-Twinkle Toes is sweet." Toph had already lost enough ground already._

_"He calls you…a goddess?" Katara sounded partly shocked, partly just confused. It was so ridiculous it hurt to even repeat it in her head._

Aang was now sucking on a toe as well and Toph wasn't sure what sound she was going to make but it was going to big and it was going to be embarrassing to think about later.

"The peaks of the temples aren't so breathtaking. Maybe I should come here to worship?"

_"Well, not literally. He reads me old airbender poetry. Their romantic poetry was very spiritual too."_

_"I hated that thing," Katara sighed._

_"Poetry?" remarked the Kyoshi warrior. "Sokka loves his Water Tribe tall tales."_

_"No, the…the" Katara swirled her wine glass over the table, "worship. When we were dating, if you had asked him, Aang would've told you that I was the best girl ever. I was pure winter snow, I was heroic and giving and loving and blah, blah, blah…." Her voice drifted off into a croak._

_Even with the soup of booze her brain was floating in, it landed on Toph like a boulder bigger than she had ever bended why things now were the way they were: why that first kiss Katara had with Zuko at the Western Air Temple had had a grip on her forever after, why her thing with Aang had ended not long after Ozai's defeat, and why he and Toph were now having the time of their lives._

_"You know, he'll want to go to the rehearsal dinner and the wedding with you. Try not to cause a scandal," Suki remarked, chuckling out the last part.  
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"You better keep massaging my feet if I say yes," she growled against with mouth after he had come back from the foot of the bed.

Aang's only answer was to laugh and keep kissing.


	3. Bring Your Wise Sayings With You

Taang fluff!

Post-War, during a trip the Wi Song Desert

Toph and Aang are 15-16 during their trip in the Wi Song Desert, back toward the beginning of their relationship, so this two years prior to "Try Not to Cause a Scandal" and "The Glory of Easy Love."

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><p>She remembered the way that hot sun felt, even though it had been five years. Sitting up on Appa, her connection to the sand told her how vast and empty this place was. It stretched out and out and out until it was fuzzy and vacant. Maybe that was as much of a horizon as Toph would ever know.<p>

Since founding her metalbending school, Toph dressed in somewhat finer clothes: a yellow silk tunic, green trousers and shirt made from softer cotton and with linen sash across her waist. Even her headband spoke of someone who no longer lived as a wild fugitive, with tassels at either end made of silk. Toph wasn't sure she liked that.

"So he said it's from a cactus?" Aang asked.

"Yeah, you cut the cactus open and there's juice inside."

"So he was like….drunk? You know I don't drink, Toph."

"He said it's not like drinking at all. Snoozles was clear on that. I wanted to try some, but Sugar Queen had to be all mama platypus-bear about it."

Toph had demanded to know more several times on different occasions, but all that Sokka could seem to say was, "Weird. Sounds echoed but not like normal…you think differently about things."

Well damn, booze did that too.

"The monks," Aang began, "Used to tell of people who wandered into the forest alone for a walk or to gather fruit and wood, and would find strange mushrooms, especially in the Swamp. A spell would be cast on them, and for a few hours they would float between our world and the Spirit World."

Toph was quietly curious and waited for him to continue

"Most of the time, they came back with a great sense of peace but if they tried to explain what happened it always sounded like nonsense. A few came back with great wisdom, and a few came back crazed and frightened."

"So, T, I'm gonna set us down in an oasis, so that we can have some shade and water. Appa could use it." 

For a moment they sat in lotus position, holding the two slices of cactus under the shade of palm tree. Toph sloshed it around, listening to the little splashes at the rim. For some reason, she now felt hesitant. She had remembered what Sokka had been like, five years ago, and that told her plainly that whatever was about to happen, it wouldn't be like fire whiskey or sake. Booze was like a wet warm blanket, but he had seemed charged with strange energy that came out in the frantic way in which he spoke and acted.

Toph needed this happen now or it never would. So she reached over to Aang's cactus and lifted it up into face, forcing him to drink or lose.

After a sip that was more taken out of shocked compliance than acceptance, he jerked away and started to say, "TOPH-… hey, that does taste pretty good." He drank the rest quickly.

She had no choice, now, so Toph drank hers fast as well.

For several minutes, nothing happened, and the pair sat in anxious silence.

When Toph tapped the ground with the side of her foot she realized that the vibrations she normally picked up were jumbled and distorted. She stood and stomped harder, and the vibrations were stronger but still more confused.

Her heart was pounding harder in her chest than any orchestra she had ever heard. The weight of the heat was suddenly too heavy and uncomfortable. She tried to take steady breaths, but the pounding wouldn't slow. The force was moving into the muscles of her arms and legs. Toph was trembling.

Then she heard a giggle. It was soft and gentle like bamboo chimes.

It was Aang, laughing.

Suddenly everything else she was feeling just vanished and her ears almost perked to hear it clearly enough. "What's funny, Twinkle Toes?"

He breathed out the words, still laughing, "I…don't…really know. I think it's the way the palm leaves look against the sky. It's like they're frozen in different layers, like those glass trinkets in markets."

"Aang," Toph said and her voice was very small, maybe shrunken from what had just happened earlier, "My feet aren't working."

He seemed to know exactly what she meant, because he stood up and pulled her by the hand back down with him to the ground under the palm tree.

She heard him pull something out of his robe, "I thought this would come in handy." And he started to play a flute.

The sound that came out seemed louder-no, bigger, than anything before in her life. The sound was soft and high, but woody and brittle like it might break if you handled it too roughly. For what felt like years the ebbs and rises of that flute were Toph's world. She felt it echo off the ground and the tree-trunks, and carry on the desert air like a leaf.

She was hallucinating now, she was sure of it. Toph was taken back through 11 years of time, and the journey seemed to take 11 years. Back and back, through founding her metalbending school; back through the memory of Sokka's hand being the only thing holding her to life atop the air blimp, back through the wooden jail in the Fire Nation; back through the battle of Ba Sing Se when she had compelled that massive metal beast to stop. Back and back and back to that day when she ran away into the badgermole's cave, and the creatures had licked her face and welcomed her.

Toph thought to herself that her whole had in some way a build up to hearing that flute. Or rather, what that flute meant. She always knew that being born blind meant her other senses were keener, but now she **felt **it. It was the greatest feeling she had ever had. Losing ever sunrise and every color on the horizon was worth hearing that flute.

Her face felt warm and wet.

"Tears of joy, right?" Aang asked, taking the flute from his lips.

Toph at first turned away, but then stopped, unable to think of a good reason why she cared. She nodded, and a smirk struggled across her face, irrepressible.

"What are you joyful for?" he asked.

"Badgermoles." The word just popped out of her mouth.

They were both rolling in the sand laughing, so hard Toph felt pain in her stomach and chest when she tried to take a breath it was look swallowing food down your windpipe.

After the laughter finally died down, after probably 3 years, Toph managed to say, "Okay, so I know things sound cool. I know they're funny. What else?"

"Oooh, smell? What about Appa's fur?"

Aang took her by the hand and together they part-ran, part stumbled over to the beast who was resting in the part of the oasis where the shade was thicker. They buried their faces in his fur. He smelled surprising fresh and breezy, but with only a slight overtone of the wet fur.

"Brings back all those days of running from Ozai and the Fire Nation," he mused.

"And everybody else," she added, thinking of her parents.

"Hey, Twinkle Toes, what do I smell like?" she spoke eagerly.

Without saying anything first, he leaned over and buried his face in her shoulder, inhaling deeply, "Like cut firewood, and wet clay. It's nice."

Her face felt warm, so she hid it in his shoulder too, and breathed deep. "Sandalwood, and that smell after a lightening storm," she said after pulling her head away, but pulled back in for another sniff. "Yeah, that clean lightening smell."

They sat down beside their massive friend and after a while, Toph looked at Aang and said, "Twinkle Toes, give me your hand."

"Why?" he asked, genuinely curious but not worried or embarrassed.

"Because touch is the only sense I haven't gotten to yet," she thought to herself, but didn't want to stop and explain. Toph grabbed his hand anyways.

And she started to feel it, with both of her own, running the fingers through and over his, rubbing the palm and tugging gently at the joints. Aang's skin was smooth and warm but a little dry from the heat, so it felt like she was holding a sculpture wrapped tightly with linen. Toph was fascinated, with even the faintest features of its texture.

"Wow," he said, sounding as entranced as she was with infinite patterns of human skin.

Toph didn't answer, but somehow she felt like she didn't have too. Their thoughts were linked in a chain by touch and voice.

"Aang," she began, "This is probably the best day of my life. I thought that our best adventures were over, but this is the best." Only after she said did she realize she had used his real name.

He chuckled softly, the sound of bamboo chimes, "The monks used to say that every breeze is different, but none has ever gone in the wrong direction."

At every other point in her life, Aang and Uncle Iroh's sayings sounded like gibberish mostly, especially when Zuko tried to repeat the latter's or make his, but right now that made more sense than anything.

Aang took his hand away and started to play on the flute again, soft and low again, before saying, "I used to feel like that about Katara. I thought she was the best I could ever have, and she was the best, in the moment. When I let her go to release my chakra, I wasn't sure I would really have to. Now I know." His voice was rueful, but still content.

"Aren't you a little mad, at Zuko, at…at something?" She scrunched her face.

"I'm happy for them. Before I knew that some of my people had survived by hiding and blending in, Katara made me feel less alone. I was worried about being alone when they were going to take me away from Monk Gyatso. But I just acted in a way that made me feel alone," he blew a few notes from the flute, and he suddenly sounded happier than before, "If I hadn't have run away though, I never would have met you."

"And Sokka, and Zuko and Katara."

"Yeah, them too," he finished, but there something in his voice that told Toph that wasn't what he was saying.

Nights grew cold quickly in the desert.

"Twinkles Toes, get over here. I'm cold," Toph told him and tugged at his robe, a single long clothe over his otherwise bare torso.

"What?" he blurted out, confused.

She tugged at his robe again, and he shuffled across the woolen blanket, laying his head against the sleeping they were using for a pillow. For a moment they lay there with their arms brushing. Until Toph growled with frustration and said, "Well?"

"Uh,-"

She grabbed his left arm and pulled it up and under her so she could rest her head on his shoulder, and then wrapped on her own tightly around his waist.

"You're the firebender here. Turn up your body temperature." Toph commanded. They only had a single blanket over them.

For a while she could feel that his muscles were stiff from tension and awkwardness, but eventually relaxed and grew warmer.

"Toph, my arm might go to sleep like this."

"Going to sleep's nice, you should try it."

The cactus juice was wearing off, but sounds and touches and smells were still charged with an odd sense of life, as if even the air and the cotton of their clothes were living beings.

"Do you remember when you said that friendships could last more than one lifetime?"

"Yup," and she could hear him smiling.

Toph was surprised about how honest she was being at this moment, and how relaxing it felt. It was like cracking stiff joints and stretching old aching muscles, letting out all those emotions she'd being keeping wrapped up with sarcasm and bravado. It wasn't anymore her 'true self' than the Blind Bandit or the Runaway had ever been, (those were awesome) but it was a part she'd not let out in the open for a long time.

"Are we gonna be friends, forever?"

"I don't have forever, T. The rest of your life is yours. But I do have right now. You can have all the 'right now' that I have." His grip on her tightened, just a little.

"Is that a monks' saying?- or a Twinkle Toes original?"

He laughed some before agreeing, "Twinkle Toes original."

Just before Toph was about to drift off to sleep, she grouchily murmured him, "Hey Twinkle Toes, why don't you ever visit my metalbending school?"

"I will sometime soon."

"And bring your wise sayings with you, too."

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><p><em><strong>(TO BE CONTINUED)<br>**_


	4. Sparring and Other Good Times

_A snapshot from a year or so after "Try Not to Cause a Scandal". Toph and Aang are around 18. _

_Canoodle Fluff. Somewhat scandalous. Rated T._

**_Thank you to all those who have favorited, followed, and reviewed! Your support gives me that extra boost to keep writing!_**

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><p>"<em><strong>TOPH!" <strong>_ , He cried, before he spun sideways above a man-sized block of sandstone that flew past him, powered by a gust of air from his palm.

She growled, and with two fists held out and parallel to her body, easily pulled a another block from the ground, holding it and waiting to fire again, "_Toph?_ That's what you call your teacher?"

Aang let out a stupid sounding "HUH" and stood there for a moment, probably scratching his newly grown shock of thick hair in its greasy spikes. He was letting it grow out, at her insistence, as a sign that he was the Avatar first, and the leader of the Air Nomads second. At his encouragement, she was now keeping her hair back with a tie. Because she scarcely ever washed it, its natural thickness and "healthy coating of earth", it hung aloft at the back her head like it was more a bundle of tree roots than human hair.

"I haven't called you Sifu in forever," Aang continued.

_That's the problem, _she thought, but grunted her disapproval instead and threw the boulder at him. Toph heard him spin backwards off the ground and bring with a curved current of wend that deflected the boulder. Ever since his "visits" to her metalbending school more than 3 years, he'd been getting awful lax with her, with his life, and most of all with his earthbending.

"I told you, _**earthbending**__, airhead." _She pointed a finger at his feet, "That's the problem. I can feel how your feet barely touch the ground. You've been living up to your nickname a little too much. Your stance is terrible."

Toph quickly returned to horse stance, and chopped several times to send diagonal jagged pillars from all around Aang upwards. He did better that time and encircled himself in stone.

"We've been doing this for 6 hours, without a break!"

It was true. The wide flat outcropping they were using to spar lay out into the calm sea like a head into pool of water. The sun was at noon peak and it was just humid and hot enough to make the sweat soak through her cotton top and rolled up breeches. He was probably, too. Toph remembered that he was shirtless, and when she started to remember how hard and warm his torso had felt last time they were in bed together she took a deep breath bring herself back to the present moment. Summer in the Fire Nation didn't have that satisfying stickiness in the air like on the shores near Gaoling, but the heat felt invigorating.

"Is the Avatar supposed to be this whiny, or is it just the Air Nomad ones?" she said aloud?

Toph heard Aang groan, and then he bended a wave up and sent it across at her, fast and strong enough that her defensive shield barely absorbed it.

"Well, it's taken you all damn day, but now you're starting to apply the philosophy of standing your ground and attacking with mass."

These training sessions had been going on for a month now. It was Katara and Zuko's 1 year anniversary and they had invited the rest of Team Avatar to a vacation on Emerald Isle. Aang and Toph's little 'thing' (they still hadn't named it) had been discovered by Suki and Katara, who promptly told their husbands. None knew how far it had gone.

She had then agreed to spend time with him under the pretense of 'training' on their own secluded part of the island. Toph had decided to be serious about it when she realized he might actually want to use the excuse to do nothing but canoodle around. She was also angry with herself for considering it.

"Alright then. Break, then."

Aang followed her down the grassy neck of the outcropping which steadily lowered down to the plateau that dominated this end of the island. He hung back at first but she sensed his footsteps quicken and to walk at her side.

They went across the open plain toward a small creek no more than few feet wide. A canyon with walls of mossy rock had carved into the land, likely no deeper than a two-story house. At the bottom though was a pool of clean cool water fed from the higher hills of the island, ringed with a slab of cool flat bedrock like a bowl.

"Hey, _sifu, _I think I have a better idea for bathing today."

She reacted to that little bit of sarcasm by bending a column directly underneath his feet launching him forward to her, his chin landing on her shoulder and now his check against hers. Toph wrapped an arm around him and over his head and warned, "I can still crush you, Twinkle Toes."

She could sense his smile against her skin and then he stepped away. Aang then bended a circle in the solid bedrock 2 meters in diameter, and 2 meets deep but with an inner bench ringing the outside to sit on. She heard the slurp of water and then a loud splash as it hit the bottom of the hole, followed by a sizzling sound like water boiling.

"Why swim in cold water, when we can have a warm spa?"

Toph grinned, and then tackled him into the pool. She felt the steam first, softly on her face, indistinguishable from his breath, followed by a wave of energy that went over her skin as the hot water swallowed them. They tussled under the surface for a moment, feeling, grabbing, pulling, and one by one soaked articles of clothing were thrown out of the water: first her shirt, then his sash, followed by her bindings and their pants, and then his underwear.

She wrapped two arms around his back and he did the same, burying his face in her hair, she into chest. Aang started to chuckle.

"Toph..." he began, but she pinched with all her fingers the sides of his stomach, smiling at the same time.

"_Sifu,_ your hair…" he weaved a hand through it, and it felt like a foot dragging through tall grass, rubbery and little painful.

She pinched his sides harder, "You're the one who said it looked good out of the bun!" She was slower to admit that was reason it wasn't in its bun right now.

"It does," Aang said, wincing and tensing up, and his heartbeat told her he meant it, "But what if I washed it and brushed it?"

"Why?"

"Cause I like touching your hair."

Toph shrugged, and then pushed against the other wall and sat down on the bench between his legs, lying back against him.

She heard the whistle of wind, and then felt his hand remove the tie in her hair and the slurp of water leaving the pool and floating above her head. She expected a small splash, but instead felt a waterfall that lasted more than a half a minute.

When he started to cackle loudly, she frowned and then elbowed him repeatedly in the ribs.

"Okay, just a minute" he said, and started to use his fingers like the teeth of a comb, gently, taking his time.

"You could just use bending to do the work, Twinkle Toes," she asserted.

"You could have bended the dirt away too, if you wanted. But that's not why you're letting me clean it." It was a little too true and she crossed arms defensively.

Toph noticed now that the warmth of the water had made his less distinctive. During that long cold winter when there was little to do after she dismissed her students, Aang had been like a hot stone in her bed. A hot stone that sang and played the flute and told stories. She never had said it, but she had been lonely and bored. He had never said it in a straight forward way, but he needed someone to touch and who didn't worship him as "The Avatar." Aang had been in the clouds for a long time, and it was cold up there. That much she could sense.

Toph was also annoyed that she couldn't smell him this way either, and that was one of the best things about him, besides his voice. She huffed and then floated up a little in the water, pushed his legs together and turned around to straddle him on her knees and rest her forehead against his sternum.

He stopped petting her hair and then stuttered, "Toph, you're sitting on my-"

"I know that, airhead, it's been in my-" She barked, but then he cut her off,

"Yeah, I know, I know, it's just you've never…"

"I didn't tell you stop washing my hair either," Toph growled.

She thought, with a little bit of anger, that after all this there was still prudishness left in him, still a reluctance for the mind to admit what the body liked.

Hands reluctantly went back to their work, and eventually she felt the fine claws of a brush. It wasn't as inviting as his hands, but at least Toph could catch that faint fallen leaf smell, mixed with sandalwood and sweat. After a while she allowed herself to hum in satisfaction.

"The water is getting cool, Twinkle Toes," she remarked and then felt it start heat up again.

Toph felt restless anyways, feeling the urge to move, do _something. _So she lifted her head up and nibbled and bit at his ear lobe. He reacted like hit with a jolt of electricity came up his spine.

"Ooohh" he let out, sounding alarmed and happy at the same time.

Her fingers got ahold of the other ear and started rub it, and Aang gasped louder, followed by a whimper, and then nervous giggles. His laughs were a soft and smooth

sound, like wood chimes.

Toph sensed something far in the distance through the ground. She sighed in disappointment.

"Twinkle Toes, could you hide under the water if you needed to?"

"We usually don't move that fast," he remarked, and didn't sound embarrassed, but clearly misunderstanding.

She punched him hard in the arm, "Not for that!" but she felt the heat in her cheeks at the thought. "People are coming."

"I guess, the steam makes the water kinda cloudy. I can wear an air shield around my head-"

"Yeah, good, do it, cause they're close."

"Toph, my clothes! I'll hide them under yours."

Once Aang had done that she heard the light rustle of his airbending, she moved off of him and pushed him under to the center of the pool. Toph relaxed against the edge and spread her arms out, keeping her face away from the approaching strangers. She prayed to Oma and Shu that they didn't have a mind to swim.

"Toph!" That voice was familiar, calling from the top of the canyon.

"Fan-Girl! What's up?"

"What are you doing?"

"In a pool of hot water?" Toph returned, pointedly.

"Oh!" she moaned, when Aang had grabbed her foot, and with two thumbs started to caress the arch, lightly at first.

"Just asking!" a different voice said, but also familiar.

"Yeah" she managed to say, but nearly moaned, as the strokes pressed harder into her sole.

"So, we saw your training yard, it looks like you've been really going at it hard."

"Ha!" Toph blurted out, and Aang must have heard what Suki said too because then he pulled her foot into his helmet of air and in one motion licked from heel to big toe.

"You're beating him into the dirt aren't you?"

She _saw _his laughter against her skin that time. Toph wanted to bend up the entire island and drop it on him. She wanted to tackle him all over again. Her chest was exploding and the heat was setting her face on fire.

"Where is Aang by the way?" Katara asked.

Toph was panting as he started to kiss and rub the arch of her foot at the same time.

"Probably eating a fruit somewhere." The words came out strangled.

There was a long silence.

"It's a little hard for me to know what you're thinking if you don't talk, ladies," Toph called out, but already was starting to fear that she had been found out.

"Are you okay, Toph?" Suki put in.

"Yeah!" Aang had eased up a little bit on the foot massage but her voice still sounded more high pitched than she'd wanted it to. She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

"We're coming down. I hate shouting like this."

"Geez? Can't a woman bathe in peace?"

"No", Aang mouthed the words against her foot so she could read them on his lips.

Katara fumed aloud, and then went on, "Fine! But if you see Aang tell him that Zuko has important business to talk to him about."

"He sent you for that? I didn't think the Fire Lady was a messenger," Toph teased.

"I CAME HERE AS YOUR-GGAAAHHH!"

Katara got angry quicker nowadays, and mouthier. Toph thought it was a nice kick of spice to her personality, and chalked it up to Zuko's influence.

"Have fun with the rest of your training," Suki oozed out, and Toph heard a distinct wink in her voice, as the two women walked away. A knowing wink.

She grabbed Aang from under the armpits and pulled him out above the surface and an inch of her face to scowl at him.

He was chuckling uncontrollably, which grew slowly until it was practically a breathless howl.

"You know…I can dive back under again and we still have time for that other thing I mentioned earlier," he suggested, only half-joking.

Toph tried to silence him with her lips, but he was so caught up in the laugh, he could barely kiss her back.

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><p><em><strong>Question for my readers: Am I overusing the whole foot massage thing? It's appeared three times, with the second time it being described very briefly. I worry.<strong>_


	5. Worship in the Bedroom

_Zutara rehearsal dinner, from a Taang perspective_

_Toph and Aang are about 17._

_Flashbacks to earlier that morning are in italics._

_Please read and review! Thank you to all of my followers! This one is a little off-beat, but I hope you enjoy.  
><em>

_(P.S.) In case you're wondering: Yes, "Take me to Church" is totally the song for this ship and helps inspire me to write it._

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><p>"Don't try to play this game with me, Twinkle Toes. Cause you will <em>lose,"<em>shewarned, as she heard the server's padded footsteps carry away from them further down the line of tables.

"It's clay," she continued, referring to the plate the server had left, and dropping the other subject, "Did Sparky do that intentionally?"

"I think so," Aang shrugged.

The vibrations told her it was some kind of stew or soup. She leaned in to smell and sharp spices lightly coaxed her nostrils. It had a heavy, cloying feel to it to, like something thick with fat, and also meaty and savory.

"Hot beef stew," she announced, speaking mostly to Aang.

"Yup."

The dining hall of the Fire Palace was a massive space: it's ceiling as high the badgermole caves, and as half as wide and long as the outer courtyard where public ceremonies were held, which could admit a stand crowd of up to a thousand.

Right at this moment, people, smells, and sounds were so tightly packed in the walls might fall away from the strain. Conversations, guests already too drunk to know they were talking to loud, cutlery scratching on the dishware, squeeking cartwheels the raw fish of sushi, the grease of animal fats, especially bacon, garlic, the plain drawling odor of steamed rice. In the center of all this humming business was an open black hole Toph's senses: probably the wooden stage where the dancing that evening was supposed to take place.

In truth, Toph was hoping he would take her up on the challenge. After all those years away from home, she'd gotten used to not having to be so idle at formal dinners. Most other games people played wouldn't work for her. Suki and Sokka made up jokes about people they saw, Zuko treated diplomatic pleasantries like prayers to a god and couldn't be brought away from them, and Katara swam deftly through gossip and family business like a fish through water.

At least she was wearing slippers, so her feet were protected.

Splayed fingers were pinched into the sides her thigh, close to her knee. Toph perked an eyebrow, hoping he'd see it and recognize the contempt.

"Really, Twinkles?"

She took up a spoon and scooped up some of the soup into her mouth, chewing a piece of beef patiently. The broth tasted of sweet peppers and onions too. She put her free hand on his thigh, in turn, and pinched hard. His spoon splashed into his soup when he dropped it, and he grumbled playfully. But Aang hadn't let go. Instead, the hand moved a little farther up.

"I'll win," Toph said simply.

Aang leaned over to whisper against her ear, "Does that me you get to choose whether I have to be at the foot or the middle of the bed the whole night?"

Toph stiffened. _Oh, so now he's playing it like that?_- she thought. Before he lifted his face away, she cupped it with her hand, "Maybe it means I'm on top and get to nibble at your ear?"

Aang's heartbeat sped up; the only sound he took was a shallow breath.

She left him with that to take a few more bites of her soup. Zuko and Katara's wedding was turning out to be fun.

_"They will be here soon," she told him._

_"What if I'm stubborn and don't move? That was a lesson someone taught me once," he mumbled, his face buried in her hair._

_"Now you remember it?"_

_"I remember it very well. My teacher was very funny," he shuffled himself flush against her, "and clever."_

_Toph grinned and decided to play along, consciously shuffling her rear against his hip. "What else was so great about her?"_

_"Oh, did I say my teacher was a girl?" he said innocently_

_She elbowed him in the ribs for that, but also rubbed her rear against him a little harder_

_"Oh yes, that's right. I remember," one of his hands floated down her stomach to between her legs, "She was very beautiful. I've been trying to find the right poems everyday to tell the world about it, but I always fall short."_

_"And what else?" She was enjoying this more than she wanted to admit, but her voice couldn't even begin to sound detached._

_"I don't even bother to pray in temples anymore, because of her," the hand started to rub the flesh between her legs._

_"Are you too sinful?"_

_"She's too sacred. She makes me worship in the bedroom."_

_At this point Toph had lost all control of the situation, but she cared a lot less than she thought she would._

_"Sugar Queen and Fan-Girl are going to come here to help me dress for the rehearsal."_

_"Blasphemy. Like covering a covering statue with a sheet," he chided._

_"Great statues have clothes."_

_"They're not 'you' though."_

_The rubbing was starting to have an effect, her lower stomach tightening and pulling. She squirmed, unable to sit still. He started to kiss slowly down her neck._

_She turned around abruptly and pushed him on his back to lie on top of him. "I've corrupted you, Twinkle Toes."_

_"You converted me," he corrected, and Toph thought he had never sounded so sure of anything in all the years she'd known him._

Aang had a hand against the small her back as they waited toward the back of the crowd when Zuko and Katara walked upon the dance floor to have the honorary first dance of the dress rehearsal, the string band playing soft and steady at the start.

After few minutes, Toph heard the clatter of other shoes on the dance floor.

"Well," he said, tugging her arm by the elbow. "Why don't we?"

"The stage is wood, airhead. I'd be helpless."

"Do you trust me?"

She did actually, and she _could_ dance, her parents having drilled the motions into her as a child. Without saying another word she walked onto the stage with him and they began to slow dance.

Amazingly, he guided her through the other ballet of dancers without even brushing against them. She could sense his pride.

"Don't get too cocky about this."

"At the temples, were trained to be quick nimble feet by being sent through a maze of tall spinning fans, and you constantly had to stay in motion to pass through. It trained you to 'be the leaf'."

"You two are creating _a scene!" _It was a Katara, swirling nearby, with her distinctive fishy smell carrying nearby.

The dancing continued, and Toph could sense that the royal couple and he and Toph were orbiting around each other!"

"Katara! Sifu Hotman!" Aang piped out.

_"I could do those things," he offered, while she bit in hunger at his lower lip._

_She was too determined to stop. Her hands had him by the shoulders, then his arms. _

_He took that for an answer,( and it was,) he pulled away from her lips "I could you know. I like touching her hair."_

_She wanted to crush him with a boulder in that moment she was so frustrated. She cupped his face. "Twinkle Toes. Listen carefully. I don't know how much time we have. Shut up and kiss me."_

Somehow, Zuko managed put in in his stiff, smoky voice, "People are seeing the Av-"

"Oh sorry, gotta go with the flow!" Aang clucked and he whirled the two of them away, and she at least had a big smirk on her face.


	6. Blindfolded

_Post-war: Toph and Aang are 14._

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><p>"I don't understand. I'm never gonna learn seismic sense. I don't <em>need<em> it, like you do," Aang whined, scrunching his face so his eyes were shut.

"You…you lost, Twinkle Toes!" Toph stammered, "That was the deal, so quit your complaining."

She'd been sure to stand behind him to tie the blindfold. The skin of her face felt warm, her stomach floating just enough that she'd rather not be seen.

That was really the whole point. She stepped around to stand in front of him. S

"I'm not gonna have to dodge a boulder like this am I?"

She didn't answer. Her throat was too dry, her heart pounding too quickly. She did what her instincts told her to do: her small, calloused hands grabbed him by the upper arms.

That was a mistake, because all they found was bare skin and forced Toph to take in a reactive breath. He'd sparred shirtless, of course

"Wa-" he said, reacting to the touch, but his steady heartbeat still said he didn't really suspect what was going on.

Without thinking about it, she'd stepped closer.

That was a mistake, too, because then the scent of his sweat wafted over her, faintly like fresh bread and fallen leaves. That moment of hesitation was a rare moment in her life.

Fingers were wrapping around the elbows: long and sure, softly gripping. Aang tugged gently, and laid a feathery kiss on her cheek.

"See? Easy." He let out a let a little laugh, "I think Sokka's making lunch this time. It's trout with garlic.

His hands let go and his footsteps softly crinkled the dead leaves in the tree-ringed clearing as they were passing away.

Toph stood there for a moment, utterly rigid. On the cheek wasn't what she had had in mind.

But there was time for that later.


	7. Third Visit

_Somewhat repetitive fluff._

_Post-Cactus Juice trip described in "Bring Your Wise Sayings With You." _

**_Thank you to all those who are following, favoriting and reviewing! It means a lot to me as a writer._**

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><p>Toph was frustrated.<p>

The whole night had passed and the soft songs of birds told her the sun was rising. Neither he nor Toph had actually slept.

At first they had laid in bed beside each other, while he played the flute and read his stories, but early on in the night he'd slid a hand under her waist and tugged gently.

"It must be cold without blankets," he had said, very softly

Late fall winds made fallen leaves scratched on the window glass, even though she was still in her trousers and tunic she still felt bare somehow.

Toph shuffled closer over the bed, but stopped short of lying directly against him. Her heartbeat was hammering, in a way that it hadn't since Sokka had tackled her aboard the airship and shielded her with his very life. Her face was on fire, her stomach about to fly away like on his glider, but somehow she felt felt frozen in place.

They had done the same thing in the Wi Song when they had drank the cactus juice. But that had been different, (for one thing, they had been tripping, even as they fell asleep) and on his visits since then they'd barely touched once.

Something had changed. A hand that brushed against a back felt like a lightening bolt. Once while sparring, Aang had managed to knock Toph off her feet, he'd grabbed her by the army and pulled her up, and for a few moments Toph's mind thought about nothing except twine-like shape of that hand.

Aang had tugged at her again. "Come on" he reassured in a very low voice, "Here." He took her other hand and laid it between the pillow and the nape of his neck, but somehow his weight on it was light. An arm rested against her back and fingers on her hip.

Stiffly, she lid her head on his chest and after a while her arm went across his stomach. He felt so….soft, light. Not soft in a flabby sort of way. For the first time Toph got a sense of the way her former student was shaped. Lean and graceful and smooth, like the stems of a sapling tree before it's bark grew rough. And that smell.

That had been his third visit to her school.

That whole night they had lain like that, and when the bird calls, he told her, "Your students will be up soon. And I have to see the mayor of Yu Dao today."

He removed himself from her grasp like a bush bending from the wind. "I'll see ya again, soon Toph."

She felt the airy tap of his footsteps on the floor going toward the window and she couldn't believe it. After all that he was really just going to leave. For the third time.

"Twinkle Toes, you've got to be kidding me!" Toph barked. She got up out of the bed and furiously marched over to him, standing near the window. One hand clutched at a bare shoulder, another at his robes.

Toph was still there for a moment and so was he, but now **his **heartbeat was pounding. It happened suddenly. She pulled him down, and practically smashed her lips on his. And then Aang was kissing her back, parting her lips very softly.

She pulled away, inhaling deep through her nose.

Aang giggled softly, but stuttered anyways, "I-I, I'll see you again very soon, Toph."

The wings of his glider whished open, and then he was gone.


End file.
